He saw the long avenue of gin cases stretching from where he stood to the arched doorway beyond which he would be able to breathe perhaps.

A thin rope's end lay across his path and he saw it distinctly, yet stumbled heavily over it as if it had been a bar of iron.

Then he found himself in the street at last, but could not find air enough to fill his lungs.

He walked towards his home, gasping.
As the sound of Hudig's insults that lingered in his ears grew fainter by the lapse of time, the feeling of shame was replaced slowly by a passion of anger against himself and still more against the stupid concourse of circumstances that had driven him into his idiotic indiscretion.

Idiotic indiscretion; that is how he defined his guilt to himself.